A 50-year-old Fife woman has been told to carry out unpaid work after allowing a two-year-old child to ingest a Diazepam tablet.
Glenda Swan, of Rosewell Drive in Lochore, previously pled guilty to the charge of wilfully neglecting the child in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health by failing to secure the drug.
She appeared at Dunfermline Sheriff Court for sentencing, having previously pled guilty to the charge via her solicitor.
Sheriff David Hall sentenced her to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work and placed her under supervision for a year.
Animal ban
A woman has been banned from keeping animals “indefinitely” after her emaciated horse had to be put to sleep. SSPCA inspectors said the animal may have survived if keeper Donna Breen, from Perth, had got veterinary treatment.
Lidl raid
Dundee man Charles Bertie, 41, raided Lidl and made off with hundreds of pounds worth of booze in the small hours of the morning, just weeks after being released from prison.
He appeared at Dundee Sheriff Court to admit breaking into the New Craigie Road supermarket on August 6 last year and stealing £212.88 worth of alcohol.
The last staff members left the locked and alarmed shop at 11pm the night before and employees who arrived the next morning and conducted a routine walk-through noticed papers had been moved in the canteen.
They checked the alarm panel and saw it had been activated at 2.38am, 2.50am and 3.16am.
CCTV footage showed Bertie, of Aboyne Avenue, bundling bottles into a black bag.
Sheriff Alison Michie deferred sentence for reports.
Bertie is due back in court on August 12.
Life’s a lottery
A winning scratch card-stealing Dundee shop worker’s lucky streak came to an end in court after he was ordered by a court to complete unpaid work. Nathan Donaldson admitted embezzling from Graham Street News when he worked there more than four years ago.
Mercedes thief’s life ban
A car thief caught behind the wheel of a pick-up truck towing a stolen Mercedes Benz through Perthshire has been banned from the road for life.
The luxury motor had been reported missing hours earlier, after thieves including Kevin Hogg crept into the owner’s home at Almondbank, by Perth, to steal the keys.
Truck driver Hogg initially told police he had picked up the Mercedes as part of a breakdown recovery service.
The 30-year-old appeared at Perth Sheriff Court in June and admitted stealing the car, while acting with others, from the driveway of a house at Mackenzie Drive on January 16.
He also admitted driving without insurance and while disqualified, having been banned from the road for eight years in 2020.
Sheriff Euan Duthie released him from custody, having spent the equivalent of a year behind bars on remand BUT ordered him to complete 200 hours of unpaid work and placed him under supervision for the same period.
He also banned labourer Hogg from ever holding a driving licence again, saying: “There’s absolutely nothing that can be said in mitigation.”
Businessman jailed
Disgraced Dundee businessman David Rankine has been jailed. He was caught with hundreds of images and videos of child abuse, downloaded over more than a decade, at his Carnoustie home. There will be an extended supervision period added.
Christmas Day downloads ‘kept coming in’
A deaf Dundee paedophile who spent part of his Christmas Day downloading obscene images of children as young as four has avoided imprisonment.
John Swanson was caught with an illicit stash of more than 400 child abuse photos and videos.
Police raided the 51-year-old’s home in Craigmore Street after a tip-off about illegal downloads.
Detectives seized a laptop and mobile phone from the house which Swanson shares with his mother.
Swanson later complained to officers that the videos “kept coming in”.
“I tried to stop it,” he said. “I was fed up.”
At Perth Sheriff Court, he was placed under supervision and on the Sex Offenders Register for three years.
Sheriff William Wood also ordered him to complete the Moving Forward: Making Changes programme for sex offenders and imposed a string of conduct requirements, such as banning him from having more than one computer and one mobile phone.
The full caseload of the Dundee Crime and Courts Team can be found here.
